I’ve been enjoying the company of my 2012 Mustang V6 Pony Package (with the stick) for just a tad over a month now. In this time, I haven’t really paid much attention to fuel economy, as I was preoccupied with other (more adrenaline-inducing) driving maneuvers. But today was an exception: before embarking on an hour-long road trip, I decided to flip the driver information display over to the average fuel economy gauge, hit the reset button, and gently leaned on the throttle.
Most of my 66-mile-long trip, which started in Colorado Springs and ended in Denver, consisted of highway driving in the sixth gear on I25. I didn’t keep track of my exact average speed, but I’m fairly confident that it would land right around the 70 MPH point if we were to go back in time and double check it. In other words, I didn’t baby it at 60 MPH. Nor did I mash the throttle and do 80 or draft behind other vehicles. I simply drove like a normal driver would, with one exception.
When it came time to go down a hill, I disengaged the clutch, allowing the engine’s rotations sink to idle (below 1,000 RPM). Doing so netted me 35.5 miles per gallon in a vehicle that’s rated at a maximum of 31 MPG — and that’s with the automatic; the stick is rated at a lower 29 MPG highway. For the sake of comparison, 35.5 MPG is three MPG short of the fuel-sipping Focus compact and its small 2.0 liter four-banger. Who said a modern-day Pony Car can’t be fun and efficient?
Even though the Trip A meter reads 149.5 miles, the average MPG readers was reset at the beginning of the 63-mile trip
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